How to fuel Forgery?

[JustQuestin2004]

So it's been said before that using Forgery to do things like 'turn someone into a Misting' would take a LOT of Investiture, more than a typical Forger would have. And based on what I know Forgery isn't like AonDor where you could string a bunch of Aon Rao's together to boost the results, so what's a Forger to do to get the Investiture needed for such a thing?

Breath, becoming an Elantrian somehow, stacking more Forgery-ness with Hemalurgy?

[Hessi's Ward]

Probably by making a very, very, very good Essence Mark and frequent application of said Essence Mark

[JustQuestin2004]

Just now, Hessi's Ward said:

Probably by making a very, very, very good Essence Mark and frequent application of said Essence Mark

Like 'Atomically Perfect' good Essence Mark?

[Hessi's Ward]

I'm not sure how I would gauge it but in my mind, it would contain everything from Allomantic lineage to how they manifest it to how they arrive on a particular planet if the person being Forged is non-Scadrian. It would help if the person being Forged wholly believes in the new backstory to help the Soulstamp to take.

[JustQuestin2004]

3 minutes ago, Hessi's Ward said:

I'm not sure how I would gauge it but in my mind, it would contain everything from Allomantic lineage to how they manifest it to how they arrive on a particular planet if the person being Forged is non-Scadrian. It would help if the person being Forged wholly believes in the new backstory to help the Soulstamp to take.

Ah, you mean making a more believable lie. Making an life story, all on a single stamp. 

Yeah that would make sense. Forgery is all about making a lie real-ish.

[Yumiya]

There are some other considerations as well.

One, the forger has to be from MaiPon, so  they would only know about Allomancy from Worldhoppers or going off world themselves. I don't really see forgers wanting to go off world as they would loose their ability forge (though maybe they could create a city in the cognitive realm the same way the Elantrians did in MSH). I suppose they could meet a worldhopping allomancer, but the intricacies of a culture where Allomancy is common place would be hard to learn well enough for such a perfect soulstamp if it was gained second hand.

Two, the forgery would only work on Sel, maybe only close enough to MaiPon. The newly foraged Allomancer would be restricted to these areas, else revert to their original selves. That severely limits the possible sources of investiture to fuel the forgery as the Dor does not seem a probable fuel source. 

Three, most of the ways that people acquire investiture would be overwritten by the application of an Allomancy soulstamp. For instance, if you tried to apply it to a radiant, you would remove the part of their history where they gained the investiture in the first place, unless you trues to spin it as someone with Scadrian descent was both a Radiant and an Allomancer. Likewise, it would seem hard to believe that someone with sufficent Scadrian blood to be an Allomancer also spent enough time on Nalthis gathering breath and then decided to travel to Sel. Working out the backstory would be painfully tedious and still probably would not be any better than the backstories that Mat Cauthon liked to devise.

The best bet I can think of is design the soul stamp for someone who legitimately would have access to a large amount of investiture, which limits who you could apply the stamp on. Note I am basing this on the fact that it is easier to change a Radiant's order than to break their bond or turn someone into a radiant. 

[+Kolten]

I think your biggest block is that to make an allomancer you need preservation's investiture. Forgery goes off the dor which is combined dominion/devotion investiture so no amount of it is going to make you a misting. I guess you could try to make it so that it is an alternative magic that acts like allomancy and is fueled by the dor, but at that point you are trying to rewrite the history of the world which is not what forgery is about.

Maybe you could use forgery to make someone who came from scadrial violently snap in their past such that they are now an allomancer?

[Trusk'our]

On 9/4/2022 at 6:12 AM, JustQuestin2004 said:

So it's been said before that using Forgery to do things like 'turn someone into a Misting' would take a LOT of Investiture, more than a typical Forger would have. And based on what I know Forgery isn't like AonDor where you could string a bunch of Aon Rao's together to boost the results, so what's a Forger to do to get the Investiture needed for such a thing?

Breath, becoming an Elantrian somehow, stacking more Forgery-ness with Hemalurgy?

I have several ideas on how you could do this, but all of them are Cosmere related, so I'll put them in spoiler boxes.

Mistborn spoilers.

Spoiler

We know that you can create a Soulstamp that is supposed to create an effect, such as turning yourself into an Allomancer, that doesn't have enough Investiture to function but will still have all the "programming" in place, so to speak.

Quote

Dragonsteel Mini-Con 2021 (Nov. 22, 2021)

Aneesh

If there's a Forger like Shai who plausibly had an opportunity to ingest lerasium and become Mistborn, but she passed it up, could she create a stamp that makes her temporarily a Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson

She would have to have access to enough Investiture to make that happen. The stamp saying, "Hey, I'm a Mistborn!" doesn't actually give her the Investiture to do that. She could rewrite her past so that she took that bead. She would not actually be able to use the power, until she got an infusion of Investiture, which could be done with a stamp in the right manner, but most of the time you're gonna have to have some external source. Basically you're gonna have to take a hit of Investiture, a large amount of it, and then use the stamp, and then it will feed on that to change you into basically any of the other magics.

Aneesh

Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

If you could get a hit of Stormlight, that'd work. The problem is, Stormlight's not easy to get off of Roshar, and it still is technically keyed. You could get it a lot more easily-- Stormlight would work fairly well, but what you really want is some pure, unkeyed Dor. That stuff, you could do all kinds of things with. But, you know, it's kinda dangerous. But that's the stuff you're gonna want, or something like unto it.

I think that if you were to do this with a Soulstamp, you could use Feruchemical nicrosil to store the Investiture that would have been used to create the Soulstamp, then tap it at an accelerated rate later, temporarily granting you Invested powers of the desired sort.

As an added bonus, since you wouldn't be actively drawing on the Dor via the Cognitive realm, you wouldn't be restricted by location.

Additionally, Hemalurgy can be used to remove parts of false Spiritwebs created by Forgery.

Quote

Arcanum Unbounded Chicago signing (Dec. 6, 2016)

Questioner

If you Stamp yourself, to have another, overwritten spiritweb, and you get Spiked-- *laughter* What would happen?

Brandon Sanderson

We actually worked this out. *laughter*

Questioner

Well, you'd die, or very close to it, but would it revert when the Stamp reverts?

Brandon Sanderson

So what’s probably going to happen here is that you’re going to rip off the Investiture you’ve put on your soul, and your own soul will have less damage. Now, the spike is only gonna get the-- the spike, you're like "What will it do?" It will do what you've been overwritten with, but again remember, becoming an Allomancer takes so much energy, and things like-- But it is theoretically possible in the cosmere to rewrite yourself "You're an allomancer", someone spikes you to get this. The Investiture doesn't care that it was fake on you, you have managed to get that Investiture to work. Uhh, this is really tough. And really, like, you need Connection, and you need, like, the right kind of Investiture, but then it rips off and yes you have made a spike that makes you an Allomancer, even though the person was a Forger. So yes, okay? But this is the kind of stuff that is like the thought experiments for physicists in the cosmere as opposed to, y'know--

With this being the case, you probably could stamp yourself with a Forgery, remove the Forgery with Hemalurgy, then rinse and repeat until your Hemalurgic spike contains enough Investiture to provide the powers a single stamp was insufficient to (plus, the powers should be permanent).

It also definitely helps that the Forged pieces of Spiritweb have the same Identity.

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JordanCon 2018 (April 22, 2018)

yulerule

Can you reuse a spike?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Uh, yes, technically, but not as easily as that question makes it sound.

yulerule

Can you re-use it if it's for the same exact thing or for a different thing? Will that change?

Brandon Sanderson

Spikes are going to get keyed by Identity--

yulerule

So you can't already spike that person. But if you spike and don't kill them can you spike the same person again?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah and if you can somehow strip the identity of the person or the spike-- So yes you can use them again but it comes into a sort of-- Like, you can't just take that spike and spike somebody else.

It also might be interesting to see if using Feruchemical duralumin to increase the Connection of the Forger would let them draw more Investiture into their seals directly from the Dor, but I'm not sure that would actually work. Still interesting to think about though.

Warbreaker spoilers.

Spoiler

Bio-Chromatic Breaths are some of the most versatile, sources of Investiture in the Cosmere. You almost certainly could use a specialized Command to fuel your Forgery with Breaths, which also has the added benefit of not being location dependent.

Although, Breaths aren't necessarily cheap, so while it's undoubtedly useful in the right circumstance, you wouldn't want to use this method all the time.

Mistborn TLM spoilers.

Spoiler

We actually see Shai use concentrated, Unkeyed Dor to fuel Forgery. Plus, she turns herself into an Elantrian, so this method is clearly capable of supercharging Forgery to incredible levels.

This method is also not restricted by location.

 

Edited March 14, 2023 by Trusk'our